Note to all forum mods/whatever: This is intended as a discussion thread about Gaijns balancing methodology, not specific vehicles in general. I.e. please dont take this down.
Anyways…
Something I have noticed for the longest while in the BR change posts is efficiency, not capability. For example- the F8F was cited to go down due to having low efficiency, wheras the cries that it was far too capable were ignored.
In my opinion this is fundamentally flawed. Efficency will always be affected by those human factors- what players play the aircraft, what they choose to do with those aircraft (Ex. J35XS and base rocketing).
Much more objective and reliable is purely objective balancing- balancing based on what the aircraft can do, rather then who plays it or how much they earn.
For example, take two identical aircraft- lets say CL-13s. Both are exactly the same in every aspect, yet one is played by far less skilled players, and one is played by the cream of the crop.
One will obviously have higher K/D, higher efficiency, higher winrate- but is that aircraft better?
Of course not.
Gaijn needs to change their focus from efficiency to capability, balancing vehicles on how good they are, not how good the players are.
Should Gaijn change their methodology for all balancing changes going forward?
Yes
No
Other (Specified in a reply)
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Edit: jesus I really did make the question an option didnt I
The F-8F has the same armament as a 3.7 P-51 with a superior climb rate, a worse rudder, and better sustained turn.
F-8F is a superior aircraft, it’s still faster. It’s just not so obviously superior due to its superior aspects being primarily experienced with play.
Also win rate already isn’t a significant factor.
Removed subjective language retained when it should’ve been removed in the final edit prior to post.
Gaijins method for the most part is fine and has its pros and cons. And Gaijin does balance at least partly based on vehicle performance because the M1A1 AIM and Click-Bait are 11.3, if Gaijin balanced based on vehicle performance entirely they’d be 11.0 or even 10.7.
The real issue comes when vehicles of minor nations get unnecessarily raised in BR simply because the players of those nations are better. The Char 25T and AML-90 come to mind.
When you have 6 aircraft, 3 at 11.3 and 3 at 11.7. The only difference is a targeting pod and GBUs and yet they are considered to be radically different in terms of performance within air modes (because of course, GBUs are the most deadly A2A weapon in game) then gaijins method of balancing is clearly deeply flawed. (Yes of course im talking about the Tornado)
And things like the AMX A-1A not even being touched and left at 11.3 is just downright confusing to me or F4J(UK) which is notably inferior to the FGR2/FG1 is 0.7 BRs higher in Sim. (reported that like 5 times at this point)
Yeah, Gaijin needs to overhaul how they do stuff with BRs
Honestly, even player based balancing could probably work. However, it needs serious filtering.
Dota and League do their balancing based on the pro scene primarily, with occasional interventions if something is busted in casual play.
Perhaps only considering performance from accounts that have a significant N battles in vehicle might help with issues like ground-pound lawmowers ruining an amazing plane’s outcomes. Or considering the vehicle against the player’s performance with other vehicles they own (ergo - do players perform significantly better/worse using that vehicle versus other vehicles they use with similar experience level?).
It’s just very painful looking at japanese/italian planes versus american ones and seeing the consequences of this balancing taken to the extreme. At least in air sim props it seems to normalize somewhat (jap planes going down by almost whole BR brackets, american ones going up by entire BR brackets).
What is outright criminal is that they refuse to acknowledge a tank being played by 10.000 players or by 10, treating them equally as not having a modifier in place that adjusts for it, which is why minor nations have been getting screwed over and over and over and major nations have things like the F8F go down.
If player A has average stats relative to their own global stats in vehicle B, then vehicle B is fine. It doesn’t matter if they have a 5/1 KD, because the skill level of the player is taken into account. And if there’s a tank/plane that players on average do better in, then that vehicle could go up.
I thought they cited its flight performance? Like having low burst mass and losing energy quickly, while one of the two positives they mention (climb rate) isn’t too useful due to it not having good high-altitude performance.
It’s actually kind of sad that one of the only US planes with a good climb rate sucks at high altitude (cries in liking the P-47, but it being useless in WT).
Well… Gaijin Considers the Sea Harrier FRS1 (sub-sonic aircraft with a weak radar, weak CM count and only IR missiles) or the AMX A-1A (Sub-sonic attack aircraft, with no radar, decent CM pool but only 2 IR missiles) Equal to the Mig-23MLD (Fastest jet at that BR, good radar, good CM count, 4x IR missiles and 2x Best SARH at that BR) to be equal.
No other nation has a reliable counter for the Mig-23MLD below 12.0 and yet the Mig-23MLD is dropping down to 11.3 and the others are staying put.
(in Sim)
I cant think of a clearer example that Gaijin has absolutely no idea what balance looks like and just sees bad soviet pilots being killed because they did stupid things as justifcation for them to move down.
If somehow their methodology can determine that the Merkava Mk.4B/B LIC are deserving of the same BR as the Mk.4M, then yeah there needs to be some changes…
*Well, US players are being complete idiots with it and keep dying so we’ll hold their hands and lower it so that the actual competent players can make that bracket complete and utter misery for everyone else, but we don’t play the game so we don’t actually care about actual gameplay, we just look at statistics and take them at face value with zero context.
Imho you are on the right track - but i encourage you to think about the wording “not how good players are” - as from my pov a BR setting based on the best 5% of all players using a certain vehicle would be actually way more effective than gaijin’s current approach using the plain average of all users.
In other words: The countless posts and threads in this forum dealing with too low or too high BRs are often addressed by highly experienced players and are often supported by hard facts - whilst the overwhelming part of their rather inexperienced users can’t follow these arguments as they progressed way too fast (in order to get to top tier) without having gained the necessary experience to use the strengths and play around weaknesses.
Two examples: The BR 2.7 (Air RB) P-39 N is way too low as it used by masses of beginners (and therefore op when flown by a veteran) whilst the BR 6.0 Re 2005 is way too high as it is flown by veterans fighting mainly rookies or part-time pilots (=tankers) in overall way better performing aircraft - which makes it incredibly hard for beginners to enjoy the plane.
So in a theoretical reset of BRs (and following monthly updates) based on the performance of top players gaijin could avoid op vehicles and severely overtiered vehicles at the same time. You might see more realistic BRs then as the main criticism of the current model comes from fights in which even highly capable players are unable to compensate superior performance of their adversaries with actual skill.
The main problem is that gaijin tries to balance the BRs based on average results supported by theoretical performance (like burst mass or TNT load) and nation combinations via the MM - and uses artificial nerfs or buffs on top of that.
It is logical that experienced players see those weaknesses - but (as written countless times in other threads) their balancing efforts (including map design and team sizes) are tailored to please the average players, and not the experienced ones.
So as their main goal is to keep their (paying) customers in the flow zone:
…and gaijin allows progress without gaining experience (best example: Base bombing in Air RB) nothing will change as they care about their business case.
I would even argue that they do their best to eliminate actual skill - that’s why Ground RB is facing small CQC maps and Air RB 16 vs 16 lobbies.
